Colin Barker

In Brief

(March 1973)

From International Socialism (1st series), No.56, March 1973, p.26.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’ Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).

A notable publication, in late January, was the massive third volume of E.H. Carr’s Socialism in One Country in paperback (Penguin, £2.00), Carr as a historian emerges in the earlier volumes of his History of the Bolshevik Revolution as incapable of handling the complexity of working-class movements. Carr is no Trotsky, but as the Russian working class tragically withdraws from the centre of the stage, in the revolution’s degeneration, so Carr’s History becomes more and more satisfactory. The price, for a paperback, is appalling, though perhaps as the next volume (still to appear in paper covers) costs over £10 in hardcovers, we had better be thankful for small mercies.

Also on the Russia front, Penguin have brought out a small collection of Solzhenitsyn’s Stories and Prose Poems (30p). Some of the material has already appeared in paperback, in two collections, from Sphere Books. The Penguin collection, however, is more complete, and works out cheaper. Highly recommended.

A useful pamphlet, for tenants and all those supporting their struggles, is Dave Burn’s Rent Strike: St Pancras 1960 (Pluto Press for Architectural Radicals Students/Educators, 15p). A new pamphlet from the International Socialists, in press at the time of writing, deals, with the present battle against the ‘Fair Rent’ Act (watch for the advert in Socialist Worker). Tens of thousands of the earlier IS rents pamphlets were sold; don’t miss this one.